


Ride of the Valkyrie

by The_Violet_Howler



Series: Kingdom Hearts and the Heroine's Journey [2]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Analysis, Gen, Heroine's Journey, Kingdom Hearts III Spoilers, Meta, Nonfiction, Originally Posted on Tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-12
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:00:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24679654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Violet_Howler/pseuds/The_Violet_Howler
Summary: An analysis of Yozora's narrative function in the framework of the Heroine's Journey
Series: Kingdom Hearts and the Heroine's Journey [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1765777
Comments: 3
Kudos: 21





	Ride of the Valkyrie

**Author's Note:**

> I delayed the second of my “Kingdom Hearts and the Heroine’s Journey” essays because in light of current events last week didn’t feel like an appropriate time to post it. In that additional time, we’ve gotten new screenshots and character information about Dark Road and the new characters that actually has some connection to what I’m talking about in this piece, so I took the extra time to do some editing to add that in.

Since the release of Kingdom Hearts III, there has been a lot of speculation about Yozora and what role he plays within the series going forward. Some say that the series is going to use the Versus XIII elements represented by Verum Rex to deconstruct and comment on the nature of the Kingdom Hearts story and universe. Others say that he’s a fusion of Sora and Riku. But all of the speculation I’ve seen surrounding Yozora has been exclusively focused on how he fits into the story in terms of lore and worldbuilding, without actually looking at the structure of the series’ narrative. **  
**

Granted not everyone knows about the Heroine’s Journey or recognizes that the plot of Kingdom Hearts is following it with regard to Sora’s growth. However, Sora’s fading at the end of Kingdom Hearts III clearly represents his death in the metaphorical sense, even if we’re not completely sure yet whether he died in the literal sense. The fact that the scenery associated with Yozora is Shibuya only serves to hammer this point home.

Because of the Kingdom Hearts III secret ending’s focus on Sora and Riku, parts of the fandom have affectionately labeled the game being foreshadowed by this scene by the informal name “DDD2”, in reference to the Dream Eater logo on the sidewalk in one of Riku’s shots framing the KH3 secret ending which suggested that the next game would function as a pseudo-sequel to Dream Drop Distance. Instead of Final Fantasy characters, the original Dream Drop Distance introduced the cast of the 2007 Square Enix game The World Ends With You, in which dead teenagers compete for a second chance at life in a plane of reality that runs parallel to Shibuya. At the end of their interactions in Dream Drop Distance, Sora promised to come visit Neku and the gang in Shibuya at a later date[1]. 

The secret ending of KH3 depicts Sora, Riku, Yozora, and the Master of Masters in Shibuya, with Sora last seen standing at the Scramble Crossing, where the story of The World Ends With You begins. This same secret ending also depicts a building labeled 104, which Sora and Yozora fight on top of in the DLC Secret Episode. The 104 is TWEWY’s fictional representation of the real-life 109 building, and is a prominent recurring location in that game. The use of TWEWY’s most recognizable locations means that even if this isn’t necessarily the same version of Shibuya that Neku and co. hail from[2], the audience has already been primed to associate this city with death and the afterlife. 

Since the DLC Secret Episode seems to indicate that Yozora has something to do with how Sora ended up in Shibuya, it’s clear what role Yozora plays within this upcoming chapter of Kingdom Hearts. Whatever the actual deal with him is regarding the series’ lore, in terms of Sora’s journey, Yozora is a Psychopomp. 

For those unfamiliar with the term, a psychopomp is a figure from folklore, legends, and myth whose job is to guide the souls of the dead to the afterlife[3]:

  * In Egyptian mythology, one of Anubis’ roles is to lead the souls of the dead from the world of the living to the entrance of the afterlife. 
  * In Greek mythology, that role is filled by Hermes and Hecate, while Charon ferries souls from the entrance to the Underworld across the River Styx into the realm of the dead proper. 
  * And in Norse mythology - which Kingdom Hearts is going to be drawing from to a significant degree in future games if the new characters announced for Dark Road after I decided to delay this essay are any indication - has the Valkyries, who carry the souls of warriors who die in battle to the afterlife. One notable Valkyrie was Skuld[4], one of the three Norns who decide people’s fates.



Though not a goddess, the Skuld of Kingdom Hearts is thematically associated with the role of her mythological namesake when she appears at the end of the original X browser game alongside Ephemer to bring the dying player character into the data world with the rest of the Dandelions. 

Meanwhile, in the DLC Secret Episode for Kingdom Hearts III, Yozora displays abilities related to data and he seems to be able to manipulate the Final World, a place inhabited by the spirits of the dead who have not moved on from the world of the living. 

So even if one is unfamiliar with the full development history behind Final Fantasy Versus XIII and the significance of what Verum Rex represents in that context, the Secret Ending and Secret Episode of Kingdom Hearts III visually and thematically associate Yozora with death, the afterlife, and resurrection.

The original backstory of Final Fantasy Versus XIII implies that this mythological role was even part of the concept for Noctis/Yozora from the beginning of Versus XIII’s conception. According to the early information about Versus XIII and its lore, those who have near death experiences could see the souls of the dead ascending into the afterlife and gained powers derived from The Kingdom of the Dead[5]. This concept was scrapped when Versus XIII was overhauled into Final Fantasy XV, but if Nomura felt so strongly about the original Versus XIII concept that he incorporated overt references to it into Kingdom Hearts, then the pre-overhaul lore should be taken into account when speculating on Yozora’s role in the overarching narrative. 

As I mentioned in “The Heroine’s Journey of Sora”, the Secret Ending of Kingdom Hearts III is setting up the “Initiation and Descent” stage of Murdock’s monomyth. In this stage of their journey, the protagonist can sometimes be accompanied by a psychopomp figure who serves as a guide through their Descent. The psychopomp’s words, actions, and presence provide the spark that the main character needs in order to realize the lesson that they must learn in order to complete the final phase of their journey. 

While I have only seen a few instance of these psychopomp figures in a Heroine’s Journey story, the ones I have seen taken on one of the following forms: 

A dark reflection of the main character. 

A parental figure

A distorted version of the protagonist’s Animus. 

As I mentioned in “The Heroine’s Journey of Sora”, Riku is the one character in the series who meets the qualifications to serve as an Animus figure. And as Kingdom Hearts III notes, Yozora bears a strong resemblance to Riku, a connection which is emphasized by one of the Kingstagram posts in the game (an emphasis which was unfortunately lacking in the English localization) as well as the novel adaptation. 

While we still do not have enough information to divine precisely how Yozora and Verum Rex fit into the cosmology and lore of the Kingdom Hearts universe, there is still enough to determine his function within the framework of the Heroine’s Journey that Sora is on. Based on the connections to The World Ends With You, the origins Versus XIII lore, the structure of the Heroine’s Journey, and parallels with the Kingdom Hearts series’ previous references to mythology, Yozora is a psychopomp figure who will guide Sora one way or another through his Descent into the underworld. 

**Author's Note:**

> #### Sources:
> 
> [1] Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance. Square Enix, 2012.  
> [2] Kingdom Hearts 3 Ultimania - Main Nomura Interview Translated; March 12, 2019. https://www.khinsider.com/news/Kingdom-Hearts-3-Ultimania-Main-Nomura-Interview-Translated-14763  
> [3] Psychopomp - Wikipedia   
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopomp  
> [4] Skuld - Wikipedia  
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skuld  
> [5] Final Fantasy Versus XIII - Final Fantasy Wiki   
>  https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Final_Fantasy_Versus_XIII  
> 


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